#BookReview As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley

As Chimney Sweepers Come to Dust by Alan Bradley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Hard on the heels of the return of her mother’s body from the frozen reaches of the Himalayas, Flavia, for her indiscretions, is banished from her home at Buckshaw and shipped across the ocean to Miss Bodycote’s Female Academy in Toronto, her mother’s alma mater, there to be inducted into a mysterious organization known as the Nide.

No sooner does she arrive, however, than a body comes crashing down out of the chimney and into her room, setting off a series of investigations into mysterious disappearances of girls from the school.

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This is my first Flavia De Luce book, but not my last. I had no problem getting into the story, but of course, since this is book seven were there bound to be things mentioned in the book that I knew nothing about. Like for instance why she was banished to Canada? Apparently, there happened things in the last book concerning her mother that led to this. But anyway if we disregard that, everything else was not that hard to understand, she mentioned people but often I got an explanation to who she was referring to so that was ok.

I admit that I first thought the story of the book took place much earlier than 1950’s, around 1920-30’s perhaps. But then television was mentioned and that meant a bit later. Also, I wasn’t sure about Flavia's ages until someone mentioned that she was 12, I thought she would be older. But she was fun; she was like a nosy Nancy Drew, but slightly more morbid. I was a bit weary of Flavia in the beginning, there is a thin line between precocious and obnoxious but she managed to stay on the precocious side throughout the book.

The story was interesting and I liked the school setting. I have always been a bit fascinated by boarding school milieu, and for mystery books are boarding schools a perfect setting. It was a good read and I'm looking forward to reading the previous six books in the series.

I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a free copy through NetGalley for an honest review!